Tag Archives: civil rights

Civil rights fall across the region

EDINBURGH/NEW YORK, FEB. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Civil freedoms in Central Asia and the South Caucasus took a turn for the worse in 2014 as governments moved closer to Russia and worried that street demonstrations in Ukraine may spread, Freedom House said in an interview.

The sharpest deterioration in civil rights in 2014, according to the US-based lobby group, came in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.

“Governments restricted freedom of assembly and speech to prevent ‘maidans’ and Russian encouragement of separatism,” Nate Schenkkan, a Eurasia Programme Officer at Freedom House, said in an interview with The Bulletin. Schenkkan’s reference to so-called maidans was to Ukrainian street demonstrations which morphed into a full scale revolution.
The interview was conducted over twitter with questions also taken from viewers.

At the end of last year Azerbaijani police raided the office of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In the interview with The Bulletin, Schenkkan said the police raid was the culmination of a tough year for media and government critics in Azerbaijan.

“There was a full-scale crackdown. Now (there are) 90 plus political prisoners, all independent media shuttered in Azerbaijan,” he said. “Sanctions for Azerbaijani officials should be on the table and EU leaders should skip the European Games.” Azerbaijan is hosting the inaugural European Games later this year.

As for Kyrgyzstan, Schenkkan said new legislation had dented Kyrgyzstan’s image.

“Kyrgyzstan is the most disappointing because it is a reversal after relative gains recently,” he said. “Copycat attempts at Russian legislation against LGBTI and NGOs nearly passed.”
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Free speech case to be heard in Kyrgyzstan

AUG. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – For human rights workers and freedom of speech activists, these are increasingly worrying times in Kyrgyzstan.

Once considered a bastion of political and social pluralism, Kyrgyzstan appears to be retarding. Earlier this year politicians prepared the ground to implement harsh anti-gay laws, now reports have emerged that say the intelligence services are prosecuting two journalists for alleged defamation.

Eurasianet reported that Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security (GKNB) has demanded damages of nearly $20,000 from Shorukh Saipov, a journalist who writes for the independent Fergana News website.

In an article in May, Mr Saipov said that the GKNB was extorting money from Muslims by threatening to prosecute them for extremism. The GKNB has said that the article deliberately tried to tarnish its reputation, charges that Fergana News has denied.

Highlighting the pressure on the media in Kyrgyzstan, Mr Saipov’s brother, also a journalist, was murdered in the southern city of Osh in 2007. His killers were never found.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 197, published on Aug. 27 2014)

Street art turns political in Georgia

TBILISI/Georgia, JULY 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — From Basquiat to Banksy, politically charged street art has been a fixture of western cities for decades. Now, though, the walls and underpasses of Georgian capital Tbilisi are becoming an open-air gallery for a similar sort of subversive expression.

“It started after the war,” 34-year-old Natia, who runs workshops for aspiring street artists, said referring to the 2008 war with Russia. “One of our friends started using a stencil of Putin’s face, and people just got more creative.”

Today, that protest focuses on two of the most important issues for Georgia’s increasingly vocal liberal youth — gay rights and the decriminalization of marijuana. Graphic artist Musya Qeburia, 23, witnessed a police raid in June on her friend’s party. The police detained several guests for urine tests.

“They just came and took them for no reason, I was angry,” she said. In response, she erected what has become Tbilisi’s most celebrated piece, a line of figures, including Yoda, Super Mario and Brussels statue the Manneken Piss queuing to offer urine samples to a pair of Georgian police officers, one of whom looks like Chuck Norris (see photo on page 1).

The piece went viral on social networks, and according to Musya it has had a big impact.

But the reaction is not always positive. Rusa, 29, with three friends repainted a prominent central Tbilisi staircase in the colours of the rainbow flag, the symbol of gay rights.

“It was a silent, anonymous protest, silent because of the violence last year,” said Rusa, referring to an anti-gay riot in Tbilisi in 2013. “There were pictures of the staircase, people noticed. Then two days later city hall came and destroyed the staircase and reconstructed it (without the paint).”

Musya is undeterred. “They can only destroy,” she said. “They can’t make anything beautiful.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)